Take a story's temperature by studying its tone. Is it hopeful? Cynical? Snarky? Playful?
Heavy-Hearted, Hopeful
Although "The People Could Fly" portrays magical happenings not typically found outside Harry Potter, the story is told with a serious, heavy-hearted tone befitting its historical significance.
Understandably, the narrator is quite upset about the suffering and violence the enslaved people experience. She focuses on the "slice-open cut of pain" (6) inflicted by the whip, and she sympathizes with Sarah when the young mother "couldn't stop to soothe" her child because "she had no heart to croon to it" (8). By focusing on these difficult images—images that show us how human the people being dehumanized are—the narrator illustrates the direness of the situation.
Though this heavy-hearted tone never leaves, it becomes a little more hopeful by the end. The people who can't fly will remain enslaved for now, but they will eventually gain their freedom, too—and when they do, they'll be able appreciate the simple things in life, like "firelight and Free-dom, and tellin" (32). They aren't there yet, but a brighter future awaits them nonetheless.